APRS Connect

APRS services

The Services tab is a built-in directory of 22 APRS service bots, the automated stations that answer messages with weather forecasts, callsign lookups, SMS relays and more. Each is presented as a guided screen, so you use them without memorising anyone's command syntax.

What a guided screen is

Every service gets a page that says what it does and who runs it, with a form for each command, so there is no syntax to memorise. The exact packet each button will send can always be shown before sending: turn on Show APRS commands in Settings and service screens show the full command before it goes. And you can always type a command by hand instead.

Replies from a service thread back like any conversation on the Messages tab, with the same delivery tracking. Six services get purpose-built screens rather than generic forms: WHO-IS, REPEAT, WXNOW, QRX, Winlink and APRS OTA.

Nets and groups

#APRSThursday, the #APRSThursday logger (APRSPH), ANSRVR group messaging, MAIL mailboxes, IRC-style channel chat, and CQSRVR. Joining an ANSRVR group turns it into a room on the Messages tab. That whole workflow has its own guide.

Gateways to other networks

  • SMS sends text messages to real phones over APRS. One requirement catches most first attempts: both phone numbers must opt in at aprs.wiki first, or the gateway refuses the message. (The older SMSGTE gateway has shut down; the current gateway answers as the callsign SMS.) Texts appear as ordinary conversation threads. They go out in the clear, because APRS is public and archived.
  • Email sends one line of email in a single packet through the EMAIL-2 gateway. The address and the message together share the 67-character APRS limit, so the screen supports the gateway's saved shortcuts, which leave far more room for the message.
  • Winlink (APRSLink) lets you read and send Winlink email from APRS, with a screen of its own. See Winlink below.
  • WhatsApp is a gateway relaying to WhatsApp.
  • NTS radiograms are ARRL radiograms, filed as a guided multi-message exchange so the form walks you through the pieces in order.

Winlink's APRS gateway, APRSLink, answers as WLNK-1. Open Winlink in the Services tab. Every APRSLink command is a button there; the (i) beside each heading explains it.

Before you start. You need a Winlink account for your callsign. Create it once with Winlink Express or Pat; it cannot be made over APRS. APRSLink also needs to have heard at least one position beacon from you.

Logging in. There is nothing to link or set up in the app. Winlink knows you by your callsign, and checks your password the first time you send it something. It does not run that first command. Instead it answers with three numbers, each the position of a character in your password. The screen shows the check: type your whole Winlink password, or just the three characters it names, and tap LOG IN. The app sends only those three characters, mixed in with three random ones. The eye in the field shows what you typed. The password never goes on the air whole. Once Winlink says hello, the app sends the command it skipped.

Remember on this device keeps the password once Winlink accepts it. After that the app answers every check by itself, and logging in is invisible. The password stays on that device: it is not in a backup file and not synced to your other devices. If Winlink ever refuses it, the app stops using it and asks you again. FORGET in the Login card removes it. Not offered in the web app.

  • A login lasts about two hours. LOG OUT ends it sooner.
  • Three wrong answers lock your callsign out for about two hours.
  • While Winlink is waiting for the answer, it takes the next message you send as the answer. So the screen offers nothing else to send until you have answered.

Mailbox. CHECK MAIL lists up to five waiting messages, numbered. READ opens a message under its subject; CLOSE folds it away and OPEN shows it again without asking Winlink. Over APRS, Winlink sends only the start of a long message, and as one line: its line breaks are turned into spaces before it leaves Winlink, so they cannot be shown. Messages you read that are no longer on the list stay under Read earlier.

Reading a message over APRS leaves it in your Winlink mailbox, so Winlink Express or Pat still downloads it the next time you connect. Only DELETE takes it out; it asks for a second tap. FORWARD sends a message on to another address.

Sending. To a callsign (it reaches that station's Winlink mailbox), an email address, or a saved name. A short message with no subject goes as one APRS message. A longer one, or one with a subject, goes as several: the app opens the message on Winlink, sends each line once the one before it is acknowledged, then sends it. Keep the app open until it says it was sent; leaving the Winlink screen does not stop it. REPLY on a message you have read answers it the same way, and Winlink files the reply under the same subject.

In Messages. Every message you read also shows in the Messages tab, in a conversation with whoever sent it, marked EMAIL. What you send to an address shows there too. Type in that conversation to answer: the reply goes by email with the subject Re: and the subject of the message you are answering, sent the same way as a longer message, and shows its progress like any message you send. Only one message goes to Winlink at a time, so a reply waits while another is being sent. If Winlink asks for your password and the app has not remembered it, the conversation says so and links to the Winlink screen. Messages from Winlink itself, such as the accept-list summary, stay on the Winlink screen. Deleting a conversation in Messages leaves your Winlink mailbox as it is.

If a message is left open on Winlink (a longer send that was stopped, or one started from COMMANDS), whatever you send next becomes part of it. The screen says so and offers SEND IT to close it.

Accept list. Winlink delivers email from the internet only from addresses on your accept list, or with //WL2K in the subject. Anyone you send email to is added for six months. Type an address, or a domain with no @, and tap ACCEPT, BLOCK or REMOVE; MAIL ME MY LIST asks for the whole list. Each goes as a message to SYSTEM@winlink.org, and Winlink answers by mail, so check mail a minute or two later.

Saved names. A short name for an address, kept by Winlink, to use in To. SAVE adds or replaces one, REMOVE takes it off, SHOW NAMES asks for the list.

Mail alerts. Tell me when mail arrives adds WINLINK to your station beacon's comment. Winlink then sends you a message when mail is waiting, at most once a day. It only sees the word in a beacon it hears, so the station beacon has to be on.

Position report puts the position Winlink last heard from your beacon on its map of Winlink users, with a comment. Nearest gateways lists the RMS packet stations nearest that position, for using Winlink by radio without APRS.

Missed messages: QRX

QRX is a mailbox service run by N0JLF. Once your callsign is registered, QRX watches APRS-IS for messages sent to any SSID of it. When one goes unacknowledged, because your station was off the air or the app was not receiving, QRX keeps a copy. It holds up to 100 messages for 7 days. The next time QRX hears a position beacon from you, it sends you a message saying how many are waiting.

Open QRX Missed Messages in the Services tab. A notification about waiting messages opens the same screen. REGISTER WITH QRX sends one message and covers every SSID of your callsign; people who write to you do not need to do anything differently.

Getting your messages. There are two ways, and they put the messages in different places:

  • PULL MESSAGES asks QRX to send every waiting message again, each one from the station that originally sent it. They arrive as ordinary messages, so each one lands in the Messages tab in a conversation with its sender, where you can reply. The app acknowledges each message, and QRX deletes it from the mailbox when it sees that acknowledgement. A message that does not get through stays in the mailbox for the next pull. On an iPhone, keep the app open until the messages have arrived, because it stops receiving when it leaves the screen.
  • READ shows one message at a time on the QRX screen, newest first, and leaves it in the mailbox. QRX sends it as two messages of its own: one saying who sent it and when, then the text. Because they come from QRX, they stay on the QRX screen and in the QRX conversation, not in a conversation with the sender. MOVE TO CONVERSATION on the message you are reading has QRX send that one again from its sender, so it joins your conversation with them. SKIP moves on when a message's text did not get through, DELETE READ removes the one you just read, and CLEAR ALL empties the mailbox after a second tap. Messages you read earlier are listed under Read earlier; tap one to open your conversation with that station.

Pull automatically, on the QRX screen, is off until you turn it on. With it on, when QRX tells you messages are waiting, the app pulls them for you, the same as tapping PULL MESSAGES, and you are notified by the messages themselves rather than by QRX. It pulls by itself at most once every 15 minutes. If you type QRX commands yourself in the QRX conversation, its menu (⋯) has QRX mailbox, which opens the screen.

The Mailbox card shows the count from QRX's last message about it, in QRX's own words, with how long ago it was sent, and who wrote most recently when QRX said. CHECK THE MAILBOX asks for a new count. After a pull the count is not shown until you check, because messages leave the mailbox as they are acknowledged.

Mail you sent. When you write to a station that is registered with QRX and it does not acknowledge, QRX tells you it has stored the message for delivery. Those replies are listed on the QRX screen under Mail you sent, caught by QRX.

UNREGISTER, at the bottom of the screen, deletes everything QRX holds for you, so it asks for a second tap. QRX accepts up to 15 commands from a station in 5 minutes.

Activation spotting

  • APSPOT lets you self-spot a POTA, SOTA, WWFF or SiOTA activation over APRS.
  • APRS2SOTA puts a spot on SOTAwatch.

Weather

  • WXBOT gives forecasts by your beaconed position, a city, a ZIP code, a grid square, or a callsign.
  • WXNOW reports live current conditions from the weather stations nearest your last beacon.

Utilities

WHO-IS callsign lookup (name and location, without leaving the radio), the MPAD multi-purpose bot, the REPEAT repeater finder (search by band and capability, then tap a result to copy its frequency), the 9M2PJU-4 all-in-one bot, and JOKE, which sends a joke to your radio.

Reachability and trust

Not every service is reachable from every station. A reachability note warns when a service appears to be RF-only or offline and a reply may not come. It only warns and doesn't stop you sending, because you know your own path better than the app does. Services that have not been verified against the live bot are labelled UNCONFIRMED in the directory.

The directory is data, not code

The whole directory is described by a file: each service's callsign, its commands, and what each one sends. Under Settings → Service directory you can export it as JSON, fix or add a service in any text editor, and import it back. The import shows a preview of exactly what will change before anything does, and there is a one-tap reset to the built-in set.

A service you add or change is marked as yours: the app has not checked it against the live service, and it sends under your callsign, which is why the exact packet is always on the send screen before it goes.

A file can correct a built-in service's wording and commands, but not the callsign it sends to. If a service has moved to a new callsign, add it as a new service with an id of its own.

Last updated 29 September 2026

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